Aging ain't for sissies. Neither is chronic pain.

I recently finished reading a James Rubart novel titled The Long Journey to Jake Palmer. One of the primary messages I took from this story is that when it comes to certain people in our lives we will never be enough. Thankfully the good news is we don‘t need to be. Because the truth is we are always enough. Always.

We may have spent better part of our lives being told in one way or another that we are not enough. Perhaps it came from our parents or our siblings, friends, bullies, coworkers, spouses or significant others. They said we are not worth it but they were wrong. Why? Because those opinions belong to them, not to us. We can’t own those opinions if we make the choice not to. We know our own truth.

I don’t know about you but I’ve offered a lot of my time to worrying about what other people think of me. So I adjusted, changed and altered who I am for no other reason than to improve their opinion of me. It was a futile effort because it never worked. I was never going to be enough for them. And you know what? It’s okay because I AM enough and so are you.

For those who think poorly of me or consider me weak or too sensitive, they are people who didn’t understand me and quite frankly I don’t think they want to because they have other agendas. A sensitive person is an easy target for those who have low to no self-esteem. What better way to build yourself up than to beat down on someone who’s not interested in fighting back? Someone who just wants to keep the peace? Other people’s opinions of us are often based on how they really feel about themselves but don’t want to admit it. It’s easier to reflect their crap onto someone else then they don’t have to be responsible for themselves. We were not created to be someone else’s mirror.

At the end of the day opinions are just that, opinions. They are not our truth. They are a judgment based on any number of things. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to be well thought of but when the opinions of others alter how we feel about ourselves, especially when we know those opinions are wrong, it’s problematic. It can be very self destructive because we sacrifice being who we really are in order to be what someone else wants and that just doesn’t fly. We were made to be us and we are important.

We need to give ourselves permission to be who we are regardless of what other people think. In turn we have to allow other people the same freedom, to be who they are whether we like it or not because ultimately we are all on our own journey. We matter and we are enough! We’ve always been enough. Now is the time to believe it. Trying to live up to other people’s opinions will not fulfill us. It will only leave us empty.

I think the best way to end this is with words spoken to Jake Palmer as the realization hits that he IS indeed enough.

“What would life look like if you could accept yourself, Jake? What would it look like if you realized the fault of your growing up was not yours, but parents who were just children themselves? Parents who tried but simply did not know how to love you because of their own brokenness? What if you realized you are worth being loved not for what you look like, or how powerful your body is, or what you’ve accomplished, but simply because you are?”

(Excerpt from “The Long Journey To Jake Palmer” by James L. Rubart. Thomas Nelson publisher. All Rights Reserved.)